Sports of The Times; Brown Is Not Giants' Basic Problem

By DAVE ANDERSON

Published: October 19, 1994

IN all the debates about Dave Brown's future as the Giants' quarterback, remember this: he's a virtual rookie on a retooled team without a dependable defensive unit.

For two seasons, Dave Brown stood on the sideline watching Phil Simms, but that's not the same as being in the huddle, as shouting an audible, as reading the defense, as throwing a pass where it should be caught and can't be intercepted.

When the Giants jumped to a 3-0 start, Brown was hailed, correctly, as much for his poise as his performance. But with the Giants skidding to 3-3, he will apparently be benched if he doesn't perform properly on Sunday against the Steelers at Giants Stadium.

"The quarterback has to make plays and win games," Coach Dan Reeves has said. "Dave's our starting quarterback, but he's got to start making the plays that a quarterback has to make."

If not, Kent Graham, the backup who will be 26 years old in two weeks, is most likely to start at quarterback, beginning a week from Sunday against the Lions at Giants Stadium.

But benching Brown won't solve the Giants' basic problem: Their pass rush no longer has even the threat of Lawrence Taylor's presence, and their pass defenders have been strangers to each other ever since Mark Collins, Greg Jackson and Myron Guyton left for free-agent dollars that the Giants didn't choose to match.

Without a staunch defense, a quarterback's burden is even heavier. Especially a virtual rookie quarterback.

Unless the defense improves, it won't make much difference whether Brown or Graham, another virtual rookie, is the quarterback. But that's the competitive risk that George Young, the general manager, and Reeves took in deciding to release Simms and go with two virtual rookies who had thrown one touchdown pass between them in National Football League games.

And if Simms were still the quarterback, the Giants' record might not be any better than 3-3, if that.

After investing a 1992 first-round choice and $4.6 million over four years in Brown, the Giants were surely hoping that he would emerge as the starting quarterback rather than Graham, who will receive $500,000 this season. After only two exhibition games, Reeves anointed Brown as the starter, but now Brown is in jeopardy of being benched.

Brown's struggle is similar to that of almost every young quarterback. Simms didn't really arrive as the Giants' quarterback until 1984, his fifth season, after injuries slowed his development. Late in 1966, Joe Namath's second year with the Jets, he was still throwing too many interceptions to please Coach Weeb Ewbank.

"Suppose he keeps throwing interceptions?" Ewbank was asked.

"Then we'll have to get rid of him," the Jets' coach growled.

That was a rash answer, but Namath's interceptions decreased as his other stats increased. And with Reeves and Brown, the situation is similar to when Reeves, then the Denver Broncos' coach, named a real rookie quarterback, John Elway, to open the 1983 season.

The Broncos jumped to a 2-0 start but after three consecutive losses, Elway, that year's No. 1 draft choice, was benched.

"There's a difference between John and Dave," Reeves was saying a week ago. "John wasn't ready. I think Dave's ready. The only parallel is the struggle that any young quarterback goes through, the struggle of learning to see things as they're happening and of not seeing things."

Brown had the advantage of having at least stood on the sideline for two seasons. Elway was a raw rookie.

But there's another difference. When Reeves benched Elway, he turned to Steve DeBerg, who had been the 49ers' starter before Joe Montana took command and was then in his sixth N.F.L. season. DeBerg had been around. Graham, in contrast, doesn't have much more experience than Brown.

"I made a mistake starting John, I told him, 'John, it was my fault, not yours.' " Reeves recalled. "It was like John knew Spanish, he could pass a test in Spanish, but he couldn't go to Mexico and speak it. John wasn't comfortable yet in the system. Dave Brown is comfortable in the system."

Comfortable in the system maybe, but surely uncomfortable in the tense situation that will surround him Sunday: play well or sit.